FEATURED POST
May 21, 2025
Summertime: For some employers, it’s no picnic
Summer paints a vivid picture. For many Americans, it’s a season of relaxation and adventure. But for employers, especially those in retail and leisure and hospitality, it’s a period of heightened labor demand and a less-visible struggle with high worker turnover.
Read more
Subscribe to Data Lab
Stay up-to-date on the latest reports and trends.
Stay up to date with Data Lab
Please complete all fields.
Filter by:
April 1, 2024
Main Street Macro: The good and the bad of stress
If you've ever had a job, you’ve probably experienced stress at work. There's no shame in it. But could workplace stress actually be a good thing? We examined this question, and found an answer.
Read more
March 25, 2024
Main Street Macro: How to catch a moving target
Change is a constant theme on this blog. That’s not only because the Main Street economy is always in motion, which it is, but also because big, long-in-the-making changes have begun rapidly shifting the economic landscape. For business leaders and decision-makers, it can be hard to keep up, let alone catch changing trends.
Read more
March 18, 2024
Main Street Macro: The new geography of work
Anyone who has ever done any hiring knows it’s not always easy to find the right person for the job. And if you’ve been on the other side of the interview table, you know that finding the right company to work for also can be challenging, even in a good economy. This matching process between job candidates and hiring managers has changed a lot over the last four years due to the growth of remote-work arrangements.
Read more
March 11, 2024
Main Street Macro: Missing the Mark: Trends in teacher salary
Teachers are a crucial part of the economy. I should know–my mom is a teacher. They’re part of the care economy, often described by economists as the workforce behind the workforce. In a new analysis, the ADP Research Institute’s Jeff Nezaj shows that even though the U.S. economy continues to add jobs at a rapid clip, the education sector is trailing behind. Here are three key findings.
Read more
February 5, 2024
Main Street Macro: What to do with good news?
Wall Street has a complicated relationship with good news, especially when interest rates are high, like they are now. Investors know that economic growth is good for their portfolios, but economic growth plus rock-bottom interests are even better.
Read more
January 29, 2024
Main Street Macro: What color is your collar?
This week brings the first jobs report of the new year, and already people are asking about the outlook for 2024. Worries about inflation and recession have been supplanted by labor-market anxiety. Layoffs in technology and finance have triggered unease that white-collar jobs might be vulnerable to a hiring slowdown this year.
Read more
January 22, 2024
Main Street Macro: The power of Davos: Networks
Davos, Switzerland, site of last week’s World Economic Forum gathering, is where movers and shakers meet. Leaders of companies, governments, and nonprofits around the world do here what they do best: Network.
Read more
January 15, 2024
Main Street Macro: Reality check
You’ve probably heard that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. In reality, when it comes to the future path of the economy, the line is rarely straight.
We saw this last week, when a key measure of consumer inflation rose after three months of decline. This kind of volatility isn’t unusual, especially during times of geopolitical uncertainty.
Read more
